Craft Beer Innovation Turning Britain Into “Brewing Powerhouse”

Impact to the UK Economy

At the Great British Beer Festival, while delivering a speech before crowning the champion beer of Britain, Jones remarked that the IPA (Indian pale ale) as well as the British pint was one of the best beers to have come out from the UK and have become a worldwide sensation. This translates to the fact that the beer industry is bringing in a multi-billion pound investment into the economy.

Not only that, he continued by saying the brewing industry had provided over 869,000 jobs all over Britain. This he said was as a result of the opening of breweries more often than we had in the past. In the last two years, an estimated average of three breweries every week.

The Society of Independent Brewers released a report in August of 2014 stating reasons for an exponential increase in sales of beer in the UK and internationally was because of a microbrewer that was just established. This no doubt was a perfect adaptation of the American styled ‘craft brewer’.

Beer Flavours

To give more life to this point, renowned beer writer, Pete Brown, attributed this success to flavour and not necessarily format. He believes the reason for the success of the beer is in the several available hops varieties. According to him, these hops varieties have a better and higher flavour and aroma. With varieties to choose from, this gives brewers lots of things to experiment with. This always allows several artisanal production of different type of beer.

He went further to state that while there is uniqueness in all products, the main idea of craft beer varies from individual to individual. In this variability, there lies an underlying commonality; it is a perfect description of creativity.

The director at Liverpool Craft Beer, Paul Seiffert, explains this creativity by suggesting that because every brewery is trying so hard to create that perfect beer, there are more and more versatility in the beer industry. This search for a perfect beer is futile on its own but serves as a great incentive for breweries. This allows the beer industry to produce new products occasionally and simultaneously avoid becoming stagnant.

Crowdfunding

Not just in the making process, these craft brewers are also looking towards creativity in funding options. A good example of these funding options includes the £25 million extension of equity done by BrewDog for Punks crowdfunding campaign. Another good example is the launching of a BeerBond by Innis & Gunn in a bid to raise enough money to build their brewery.

Another company that has used crowdfunding successfully is Camden Town Brewery. They were able to raise £1.5 million with their campaign launch through Crowdcube.

Earlier this year in February, Camden Town Brewery founder Jasper Cuppaidge was in an interview with Hunter Ruthven. In the interview he revealed that the raising of capital has become the norm for most craft brewers because of the increasing interest in the industry. He went on to reveal that Camden Town Brewery itself needed a new brewery. This was as a result of the growing demand which saw a portion of its products being outsourced to breweries in Belgium.

Unlike before, craft beer has received better funding because it looks more fashionable. In addition to this, Brown is of the opinion that beer is no longer for middle-aged and old men but has evolved into something younger generations can relate with.